Whether you are just starting to blog or have been blogging for a while there is likely nothing more important to you than knowing how to get traffic to your blog.

One of the good ways you can get blog traffic is to comment on other blogs as I have covered in my post Get Blog Traffic With Comments. Another good way to increase blog traffic is to build links to sites that will help your blog to be found by others.

Link building is a part of SEO. I have mentioned some elements of SEO in my post called Blogging SEO Strategy.

There are hundreds of blog directories that you can list your blog in. I would start with the top ones first. I’m Vance Sova and I invite you to read on.

The following is a guest Post by James Adams:

Top 10 Directories That Will Help Get Your Blog Noticed

Once you’ve got your blog set up and have been blogging for a few days or weeks, you may have wondered why the readers and visitors aren’t flocking in.

The answer is: you’ve got to get the word out. If you don’t tell anyone about your blog, then no one will even know that it exists.

One of the best ways to get instant exposure for your blog is to submit to a blog directory. There are hundreds of these around the Internet, but some are much better than others. Here are the top 10.

1. DMOZ: This is one of the oldest and most respected directories on the Internet. DMOZ.org won’t accept your site until it has been reviewed by their editors to make sure that it’s not spam. Unfortunately, this process can take several months, so it’s a good idea to get started early. When your blog finally does get listed with DMOZ, Google will look upon your site with much more respect.
2. BOTW: Best of the Web is also an established and highly respected directory. It has been in business since 1994. A link from BOTW will instantly give your blog a boost in credibility and visibility.
3. Business.com: If your blog is commercial in nature, then this is an essential place to get it listed. For a listing fee of $299, you’ll be able to get targeted traffic all year.
4. Yahoo: Yahoo bills itself as the oldest directory on the Internet. Although Yahoo may not have the prominence that it once did, it still gets a ton of traffic every day. If you can get your site listed here, it can be well worth it. It’s free for non-commercial sites, but $299 for commercial sites or if you’d like your site reviewed within 7 days.
5. Bloggeries: Bloggeries is a great directory because of its organization. Visitors will be able to quickly find your blog by category, which will result in more targeted traffic for your blog.
6. Eaton Web: This is another highly respected blog directory. One of the strengths of this directory is that blogs can be rated and will be listed based on their overall strength and popularity momentum. This can get you a lot of exposure if people begin to find your blog valuable.
7. The Blog Frog: This is a directory that is quickly rising in popularity. The Blog Frog combines a blog directory with a social media platform. Not only can you list your blog, but you can interact with other bloggers directly on this site.
8. Blog Search Engine: Blogsearchengine.com is another highly selective blog directory that can give your site a nice boost. Many Internet users come here directly to search for blogs, so you want to make sure that your site is served in their search results.
9. MyBlogLog: MyBlogLog already had 45,000 members when it was acquired by Yahoo in 2007. Now, it has more than a quarter million members and 22 million visits per day. You can list your blog and encourage other members with similar blogs to form a community around you. This is one site you don’t want to skip.
10. Blogged: Blogged is similar to news aggregators like Google News. The only difference is that it pulls news stories from blogs rather than traditional news sites. If you write about topical subjects on your blog, then you definitely want to list your site at Blogged. You’ll be able to show up on the radar screen of web surfers looking for fresh content.

If you haven’t yet begun to promote your blog, or if you have been using other methods to get the word out about your blog; then your next course of action should be to begin submitting your blog to a few directories. The sooner you get started, the sooner you’ll begin to see the results you want.

This guest article was written by James Adams who is a full time blogger working with an online supplier of ink cartridges. Check out their blog for more of his posts about design and marketing.

Please go ahead and make a comment. Have you submitted your blog to any of the directories above or any other ones? Have you noticed an increase in traffic?

Bookmark and tweet the post for others to see.

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Authored by Vance Sova

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Hi everybody, Vance invited me to guest post here on his blog. Some of you might know me either from my main blog or from a forum. I go mostly under the nick name of hospitalera on the internet. And some might not know me at all But enough of me, let me ask you a question:

Have you made a dollar on the internet today?

Yes? Great, you can proceed to one of the other great posts on this blog, for example to Getting Blog Traffic from Twitter But if you haven’t, you should keep reading.

Does the following description fit you?

You have bought a couple of ebooks, joined a few membership sites and paid forums, perhaps you even have bought one or more make money online – coaching courses. But you never earned a single dollar, despite all of your investments. Or you earn a few now and then, but still not enough to break even, not speaking of making any profit.

And do you know what else? I know exactly why you don’t make any money. You never made any money online, because you never started to implement what you have learned. You never started your first site (not even a free blogspot blog) nor did you ever write your first article on hubpages or elsewhere. You are still learning, you are still researching and you are still spending money on ebooks, courses and coaching programs instead of actually earning money on the internet? If this is correct, then this blog post is for you

Making money online, no matter if with blogging, article writing, affiliate marketing, building of niche websites or a combination thereof, is very much learning by doing. If you never actually implement what you are learning and reading about, you will never gather any experience and never know what works for you and what not. So, lets get finally started, shall we?

1. Step to making your first dollar

Take an empty sheet of paper or open a fresh document in your text editor program. Dot down what the things are you know a lot about. What are you an offline expert in, and in what field could you become an online expert? What are you passionate about? In short, what could become your niche market?

2. Step

Sign up for hubpages and start to write articles about things you are knowledgeable about. Write the best articles you can about a topic you are really knowledgeable in. Ask yourself the question: What would I want to find and read when I look for information about xyz? Again, write as best, as informative and as exhaustive as you can. Write the best possible answer to each query a reader might have.

(Please note a message from the author and editor: 3. Step is not missing, it was absorbed into the 2. Step).

4. Step

Look what works and why. NOW you can use all your knowledge and research you have done so far about internet marketing. Write articles and see what works and what doesn’t. Which hubs get traffic and which convert this traffic into dollars and which not. Which keywords = topics work best with which monetizing method. Repeat which methods work and don’t insist on doing what doesn’t work.

5. Step – Make Money

Will you make money with your first hub? Most certainly not. With your fifth? Perhaps. With your tenth? Most likely, if you continue to write great content and to learn from your own experience.

What about keyword research? Competition? Planning? Having a system?

If you are like most people on the internet, then you suffer from information overload regarding all these topics. The only way to actually see the bigger picture and to learn is to DO SOMETHING! Remember the first Harry Potter book? When Hermione gets attacked by the mountain troll? Harry tries to help, but gets himself in trouble and shouts at Ron for help. What does he shout? Do something, ANYTHING. The same is valid also here. You have to do something, anything, to make a start.

So, are you ready to start NOW to make money online, or will you wait just a little bit longer? Will you sign up for free to HubPages today AND publish your first article also today? Or will you wait until you know it all?

Leave a comment and tell us what you think and how it’s going.

You can even put in a link to your first hub in the website section of the comment form. That would mean you have not only published your first hub, you also have build the first back link to it.

Before you go tweet the post and bookmark it.

So, go ahead, make your first dollar – NOW.

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